Europeanization and Administrative Reform: The Case of Turkey

Abstract: This article aims to analyse the relationship between Europeanization and administrative reform within the context of recent developments in Turkey. While doing this, the analytical tools of sociological institutionalism and the misfit model of Europeanization are utilized together with the analysis of related legal documents and in-depth interviews conducted with the actors in various tiers of administration. The article argues that institutional change entails a change in values and discourses of the political actors and in the Turkish case, despite the EU's pressures for administrative reform and the resulting legal changes of the 2000s, because of the institutionalized powers and resistance of the actors at the central level no institutional change has occurred in Turkey regarding the administrative system.